Brain Full of Games

What happened to the Crystal play through? Nothing: I’m getting Pokemon to trade up into Crystal in order to complete the Pokédex.

I did not actually want to waste a lot of time with a Gen 1 play through because I might like to revisit a game one day for a proper play through to post, so first I just checked through any of my existing games that I could trade from. I grabbed a Squirtle and Pikachu from a Red Version game I already had, and then a Mankey from Yellow. I didn’t need to send the Pikachu, but I know it takes quite some time before you come across wild ones in Kanto, and once I started trading I thought I might as well send over all I could.

I have been using mGBA to emulate these games and it was very simple trading between two existing files: I opened a multiplayer window, did some simultaneous speaking to the two nurses in the trading area of the Pokémon Center, and after a few rough starts finally was able to trade. I thought it would be more difficult than it ended up being, and I didn’t realize until I tried that the multiplayer and trade functions were built into the emulator.

Anyway, after trading what I already had, I remembered that in Yellow version you get the starters quite early on. So I went through Mt. Moon and rescued Charmander just north of Nugget Bridge. Unfortunately, my friendship level with Pikachu wasn’t high enough to get Bulbasaur from the nice girl who was taking care of him in Cerulean City, so I had to play a bit more of the game, level up Chewy (my Pikachu), feed him Potions, etc. Since I still had a bit more to do… I found myself thinking about the Youngster with the Slowpoke on the way to Cerulean Cape. IYKYK. Well, even if you don’t, I’ll tell you: he’s the trainer battle commonly skipped when doing the Mew glitch in Gen 1 (there are a few others, but I always did the Fly/Youngster/Gambler combo). So I decided, while I’m here and removing important Pokémon from this game, why not grab a Mew?

Getting through Diglett Cave, getting Flash, and arriving at Route 8 where the Gambler is doesn’t actually take that long. You go through the Underground Path near the Gambler and that takes you to Celadon City. Crossing Celadon past the Department Store brings you to a double guard house, the top one only accessible my cutting a tree. On the other side, there is a house with a girl who gives you Fly to encourage you not to blow up her spot. That is the final piece you need to get Mew. With Fly taught to my Spearow, I returned to the Underground Path to start the process for getting Mew (for the curious and unfamiliar, see this article).

To be perfectly honest, I tried to get around getting Fly by testing out this method using Teleport and my Kadabra. It did not work because I couldn’t stop from triggering a battle while going through Rock Tunnel, which resets which Pokémon appears upon returning to Route 8. So the first time I did this, I got Arcanine, which was cool but not what I needed.

After catching Mew, I had a look through my Pokédex in Crystal version to check if there was anything else I could be trading over to save myself some time. I ended up trading Charmander, Bulbasaur, Mew, and Mr Mime (there is a trade with an NPC in the same place you get HM05, so while I was getting Flash I also got the Mr Mime, even though I think you can catch it later in Crystal Version). Now, I am planning on going through more of this Yellow Version game to get more Pokémon to trade over, but for now I’m back to Crystal Version. I want to train up the Gen 1 starters that I know have.

Next time, I’m going to trade the Legendary Birds, Mewtwo, Aerodactyl, and Omanyte. Oh, and Vulpix (I grabbed it from the Game Corner to replace Charmander for the Erika battle). Oh, and just a quick update: my Crystal Pokédex is at 128!